Winter's shutdown is everywhere evident. The woodland floor is cloaked in the rich brown hues of fallen leaves, their tones painted by rain's water-colouring artistry and breeze's drying touch. Tracks through the conifers are strewn with small branches wind-ripped from trunks to become, once in the airspace of the ride, a foliose wing flying into the distance. Path sides are peppered with muddied acorns, unattractive now to ponies but a veritable larder for many others in the harsher days that may lie ahead. All around, the dark grey bark of wet twigs is enlivened by the subtle grey-greens of the different lichens they have brought down with them.

A sphere the size of a tennis ball a little way into the trees catches my eye. It's an interweaving of very soft, fine filaments that lead up to small cups that are fringed with eyelashes, the whole appearing like a colony of linked space satellites surrounded by a web of protective sensors. Some will no doubt laugh at my description of the lichen Usnea florida. Beneath an oak that appears to be growing skeins of body hair we find a strand of Usnea ceratina. This lichen reminds me of Spanish moss, a flowering bromeliad with which visitors to the more humid areas of the US will be familiar.

The forest is saturated. Ditches gurgle with the sound of running water and only the reckless will venture anywhere near the mires and wetlands. For days the ponies have had little option but to seek shelter in the gorse brakes where they stand with their backs to the driving rain. On this first bright day they gather in favoured sunspots to dry out their coats as they soak up welcome warmth. Under pines, a tuft of bright golden-yellow coral fungi stands out. In the hedgerows, long yellow hazel catkins sway as they are brushed by the turbulence of passing traffic. Both fungi and catkins make a bold statement. Others may have shut down for the duration. For us, it's business as usual.